[@Mistress Dizzy]

It appeared that letting the Princess have a say in what they did was the right option. Droka couldn't help but chuckle softly as he answered "For what it's worth, it's likely for the best. Because between you and me, I don't really know that many dances." 

The question about his home country and why it might hurt him to talk about confused him for a moment... before he remembered mentioning the death of his half brother earlier. Perking up as understanding reached him, he chuckled again before explaining "Oh, you're not familiar with how Tushina... okay. I won't go into the full, in-depth details of the history of Tushina inheritance laws because it's so tangled up with religion and politics that I would literally need to give you the full history of Tushina in order to give everything the context it needs to make sense." The look on his face suggested that he was completely serious about that as well, but he took a quick breath as he slipped into teacher mode. 

"The short, relevant briefing of it is that when it comes to inheritance, lands and titles are equally divided among the sons of the deceased... with it being split among the daughters only if there are no sons. Now this is all well and good for most people, but when it comes to the ruling family of Tushina it becomes something of a problem because historically it's a fairly fast way to kick start a civil war over succession. So the general practice is that the current ruler will go through their current selection of valid heirs and select one to be the heir of the throne. This decision can be changed with time and circumstance and isn't locked in... until either the ruler believes the end is coming or they suddenly die. Either way, standard procedure is for all valid pretenders and any male offspring they might have are to be executed as swiftly as possible to prevent the possibility of a succession crisis."

Despite the fact that most people would have been horrified by just hearing about such a brutal practice, let alone be one of the people who has to live with the possibility of being caught out by it, Droka seemed completely at ease. "Even without that hanging over our heads, my half brother was a complete ass and we didn't get along all that well. The fact that he's dead and I'm here to marry either yourself or one of your sisters more or less locks me in as the heir of Tushina so... if it looks like I'm strangely joyous about the death of my half brother and the possibility of an arranged marriage, it is because for the first time in my life the shadow of the executioner is not hanging over me."

"I would love to hear more about you and your kingdom through." He added, deciding to try and lighten the mood just a little.